Tuesday, June 10, 1997
Though netwrok architecturally challenged, I have been trying to
follow the discussion on language tagging. 1. It would help if some one
would tell me (preferably without acronyms or initialisms) what the domain
is in which the ACAP functions or seeks to function. 2. I would agree
that hyphenation of a roman script text string cannot be done by a
software accurately enough to please everyone without knowing the language
of the text string. At the same time one does not always know the
language of a text string so one cannot always please everyone. (For
example, the hypothetical string: "Zola, Emil, 1840-1902. - Nana. - Paris:
Hachette, 1992. - 224 p. ; 27 cm." could, I believe be in French, English,
Italian, German or Spanish. The "p." is an addition by using the
conventions of who ever created the string and it would be the same no
matter what the language of the rest of the string might be. In the
automation of bibliographic data, domain segments of this string are
identified as author, title, place, publisher, date, pagination and size
and the language of the text of the item being described is given but, not
that of the individual segments.) This leads me to hope that language
tags would be optional.
Thanks for any clarification,
Regards,
Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov )
The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official
views of any government or any agency of any.